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When the bulk carrier Cape Apricot slammed into a causeway at Westshore Terminals Friday, severing the only link with one of the terminal’s two loading berths, it destroyed half the capacity of North America’s largest coal exporting facility.

The damaged causeway could take months to repair. And four days after the early-morning incident, investigators are still trying to piece together what happened.

But one thing is evident, said Greg D’Avignon, president of the Business Council of B.C. — the province has lost a key export point for its most important commodity.

“Coal, particularly metallurgical coal, is a key export for British Columbia, in fact it is our largest export. And any time there is a disruption in the supply chain, that has implications not just in terms of the companies and their customers, but also in terms of the economy of British Columbia,” D’Avignon said Monday.

“I am sure the companies are trying to find a workaround in the short-term to resolve the disruption, but there is no question that it has implications to the economy in the immediate future.”

The province has little excess coal shipping capacity.

Teck Resources, B.C.’s largest coal miner, ships through Westshore and Neptune Terminals in North Vancouver. It said after the collision that it will continue to ship coal through the remaining berth at Westshore and will be shifting capacity to Neptune Terminals. It also announced it would explore options for moving additional tonnage to Pacific Coast Terminals in Port Moody and to Ridley Terminals at Prince Rupert.

But Ridley, the province’s second-largest terminal, has no room for new customers, a company spokesman said Monday.

“At this point in time, it’s pretty tight,” said Ridley Terminals senior manager Dennis Blake, noting that the terminal is currently undergoing an expansion project, which limits flexibility.

Pacific Coast Terminals has been exporting a relatively small amount of coal for Teck — 80,000 tonnes a month — since 2011.

To gauge the economic impact the loss of the berth could have on the province, coal revenues hit $5.2 billion in 2011, accounting for nearly 60 per cent of the value of British Columbia’s total mining revenues. The province shipped 49 million tonnes of coal and Westshore accounted for the largest amount, 27 million tonnes. By the end of this year, the terminal expected to raise its capacity to 33 million tonnes. The loss of its largest berth has killed that target; just how badly it will affect Westshore’s throughput remains unknown.

Engineers are still trying to assess the extent of the damage, including on sections of the causeway that remain standing.

There are no clear answers about how the collision happened.

The Cape Apricot had a pilot on board and would have been escorted by two tugboats as it approached the coal terminal, said Kevin Obermeyer, president of the Pacific Pilotage Authority.

“Everybody wants to know what happened, how it happened,” Obermeyer said.

The Transportation Safety Board is the lead agency investigating the collision.

The Cape Apricot ran bow-first into the causeway connecting the terminal with an offshore berth where a second ship, the Chardonnay, was loading coal. The Cape Apricot was approaching the terminal to take on coal at the other berth.

According to Westshore, the mishap occurred at 1 a.m. Friday. The ship took out about 100 metres of the causeway, which carries a road, a coal-carrying conveyor belt, electricity, water and other services to the berth, dumping about a third of a railcar full of coal into the ocean.

The extent of the damage remains unknown, as does the environmental impact of the coal that spilled into the ocean.

“We are in the damage assessment phase,” said Westshore Terminals executive Nick Desmarais. “In the meantime, we are running our operation as best we can.”

Westshore spokesman Ray Dykes said the company also has its own environmental consultant assessing the impact of the coal spill. Environment Canada officials are assessing coal samples.

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